There’s a burgeoning tension in the UK’s Covid policy, according to Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson and co-host of weekly podcast, Planet Normal.
“They don’t want us to relax and think think this is what it is now, which is mainly a cold for most people, but then they are starting to lift measures”, she says, citing Wednesday’s announcement that government guidance will no longer require asymptomatic people who test positive on a lateral flow test to take a confirmatory PCR.
“It suggests they know full well that it’s not as bad,” she tells the podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player above.
“We’ve got dreadful staff shortages everywhere, so they can no longer justify people taking that secondary test and being off work.”
Following a widely-lauded vaccine rollout scheme, the UK is now seeing, according to Pearson, “a pandemic of testing, not a pandemic of illness”.
Podcast co-host and Telegraph columnist Liam Halligan is quick to point out that the country is carrying out ten times more tests than Germany. “It’s absolutely incredible,” he says, with no hint of praise.
“That’s why our cases are so high.”
He appeals to his journalist colleagues: “When is a lobby correspondent going to say to the Prime Minister or Jonathan Van-Tam or Chris Whitty, ‘Why are we doing ten times more tests than Germany?’?”
Listen to Planet Normal, a weekly Telegraph podcast featuring news and views from beyond the bubble, using the audio player above or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast app.
